The invention pertains to methods and apparatus for optical processing of temporal waveforms.
Optical processing of temporal waveforms can be performed using spectral filters such as the composite gratings described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,318, Apparatus and Methods for Routing of Optical Beams via Time-Domain Spatial-Spectral Filtering; U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 09/100,592, abandoned and 09/115,331, pending, Segmented Complex Diffraction Gratings; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/120,959, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,220, Segmented Complex Fiber Gratings; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/354,851, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,282, Time-Wavelength Multiple Access Optical Communication System and Method. These documents are incorporated herein by reference.
The spectral filters, coders, and decoders described in these references include optical fibers in which fiber Bragg gratings are formed. Unfortunately, the properties of these fiber Bragg gratings are fixed during manufacture so that systems using these devices are not readily reconfigurable. Dynamically reconfigurable devices that are programmable to provide different spectral filtering characteristics or codings are needed.